THE CURSE OF BEING AN ATHEIST

They say knowledge is power. And with power comes responsibility (Ben Parker, Spider man).

Responsibility is like a liability forcefully laid on weak shoulders. Why weak? The moment we treat some task that we have to perform as a duty or a responsibility, it implies that we don’t really want to do it but since it is a must it has to be done. It implies lack of will to do it. And without will, we are left feeling weakened.

 Let me elaborate on it a little more with illustration. I hate to do the dishes at my home. I hate to wash clothes and hang them on ropes and rods for drying. But when the maid is absent, I have to help my mother with these chores. This is a task which I am not willing to perform, yet I have to do it. I ask myself – why? The instant answer that props up in my mind is, “Because it is your responsibility”. So, the word ‘responsibility’ comes in the picture only when there are both ‘lack of will’ and ‘compulsion’ of performing the same task, a collision of whose leaves the person with a feeling of weakness.

With this logic, I will be a much weaker person than many others who have no idea of the task that is to be performed, since the task is to be performed on them. If they are not aware of the task, how will they be aware of the responsibility? And how will they feel as weak as I do? They do not have the knowledge, so they do not have the power, so they do not have any responsibility, so they do not feel weak.

I was twelve years old when it struck me that there is no such being as God. The concept is a fantasy carried forward by generations and generations of human kind and human mind. It first appeared when the nature scared the hell out of human beings, the thunders, the mighty clouds, the heavy rains, the droughts, the forest fires, the high tides, and cyclones – the might of nature against a tiny human being. Humans could not locate the source of these calamities. They could not see who sent these things upon them. They were awed. And this led to the concept of total submission to that mighty thing – which they couldn’t name correctly yet knew that it existed – Nature. They started worshiping nature; they started worshiping its powers. Till then, it all seemed okay. But human mind needs a fixed shape, symbolically representing something towards which the mind has a feeling, whether of respect, or of disrespect. It needs to know (imagine, rather) what is it that it’s commanding, or what is it that it’s submitting itself to. This led to the creation of the concept of GOD. Its scope was compressed into a figure. The significance of the representative figure gradually grew more than what it represented.

Today, we have acknowledged the sources and reasons of these ‘miracles’ by scientific means. It can be easily proved that GOD doesn’t exist. Education can enlighten those who are curious to consider the doubts on existence of god. The sad news is, even after being labelled as educated, people refuse to consider the impossibility of God. The very thought scares them off. Why? Why do the masses close their eyes to the obvious realities of life?

The answer to this is, fear of doubt and lack of confidence. People like the idea of being secretly supervised all the time. They like to believe that conscience is a gift through which the almighty guides them, directs them in the right way. They like to believe that no matter however incorrect steps they take, there is always someone who is going to bring them back on track. They like to believe that their journey of life has a fixed destination, and something that externally controls them and their lives will lead them to it in the end. They know, deep down, that every important decision that they take in their lives can change the whole course, can turn their world upside down – for which they themselves are solely responsible. But they are scared of regretting, they are not confident about their own abilities. So they tell themselves that god has good plans for them, that god wants them to do that which they actually do not wish to do, and yet are doing it.

Where does this tendency come from? The tendency of depending on god? The tendency of depending on somebody other than oneself? It comes from laziness and reluctance of thinking. To think is the responsibility of every human being, for thinking leads to evolution, and constant evolution is the ultimate goal of human species. 

However, since it is a responsibility, there is a lack of will to perform this simple task, and it leaves the human mind weakened. A weakened mind, which is refusing to think, becomes vulnerable to products of alien thoughts, and brings out baseless conclusions – which may or may not be correct. The essential element required to bring such conclusions is, absence of thinking. So what has been mind left to do, if it is not to think on its own? It directs itself to simply filter any oncoming data so as to provide evidence to support their previously concluded (mis)conceptions – which they like to call information. The mind performs no other significant task.

With so little amount of thought production and processing on its own, the mind has to import ready made thoughts for functioning. This increases the tendency of dependency. This leads people to start believing in god, to follow the masses, to look at themselves through eyes of others, blindly. And the mind rapidly starts turning more and more passive, becoming completely alien to itself after certain course of time.

I know this is their problem. I know it will be very easy for them to understand this problem themselves once they decide to open up their minds for self debating. My real problem is, I don’t know how to persuade them to THINK, yet I know I will have to do it, even if it consumes my whole life. Since I care for them, since they are dear to me, since I have to live with them, since it is my responsibility – I am left feeling weakened. This weakness, this inability to easily share my strength of knowledge with the weak that refuse to grow strong, is the curse of being an atheist.

-         © Kaustubh Anil Pendharkar